A director for the St. Johns Water Management District said the treatment facility for the Black Creek Water Resource Development Project has reached a significant milestone with all six treatment cells now filled with media, but drought conditions are preventing the facility from beginning full operations.
The project will divert up to 10 million gallons per day from the South Fork of Black Creek during wet-weather high-flow periods. The water will be pumped through a transmission system before being treated for color and nutrients prior to discharge into Alligator Creek. Alligator Creek flows into Lake Brooklyn, which will increase recharge to the Upper Floridan aquifer through the lake bottom.
The project is also expected to contribute to regional minimum flows and levels recovery and will help improve water levels in lakes and the Alligator Creek system, including drought-stressed lakes Brooklyn and Geneva.
Dale Jenkins, director of the Division of Infrastructure and Land Resources, provided an update to the board on Tuesday, January 13, reporting that the final treatment cell was completed last week.
“All six cells are now full of media. So that’s a big milestone that we’ve met,” Jenkins told board members.
Drought delays plant installation
Jenkins said that while the construction phase is essentially complete, the project team decided to delay installing plants in Cells 5 and 6 due to severe drought conditions affecting the region.
“We don’t want to put the plants in right now because the water that we have available, we don’t want to use it all up to try to keep those plants going,” Jenkins explained. The plants are being held at a nursery until rainfall conditions improve.
The area is currently classified as experiencing severe drought, according to recent hydrologic assessments. The water shortage is significantly impacting the project timeline, as adequate rainfall is needed before the facility can begin operations.
Limited water available for testing
Project staff are making progress where possible with limited water resources. Available water is being used to maintain plants already installed in Cells 1 through 4, while technicians conduct testing on valves and sensors throughout the system.
Workers are also completing remaining site work, including grading, capping berms with rock and stone, and installing fencing around the facility.
Functional testing awaits rainfall
The final major hurdle before the facility can become operational is functional demonstration testing, which requires several consecutive days of water flow through the system. This comprehensive testing will verify that all automated systems function properly, including:
– The Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition system
– Automatic pump operations
– Water delivery to the treatment system
– All valves and sensors across the six cells
– Proper timing of pump activation and deactivation
“We’re going to need some rain in order to do that,” Jenkins said of the final testing phase.
